Wind, Snow, and Stars
by hrimcealdsae
Summary: Summary: Revisiting moments of the film. Sometimes, you need to squeeze the angst muppet and work out the feels. No explicit icest.
1. Chapter 1

_ So in the heart of the desert, on the naked rind of the planet, in an isolation like that of the beginnings of the world, we built a village of men._

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, _Wind, Sand, and Stars_

The ice and snow fly from my fingertips, but my heart is fiercely hot, exultant and free. I sing out to the night sky and create a snowman I haven't seen since my childhood. Since that day I have always been careful with my words. How can you speak when you mustn't feel? But now I am free and the verses slip easily from my lips, as easily as the power rushes through my body and leaps joyfully from my bare hands.

I race across a ravine and the bridge crystallizes in frozen fractals beneath every step. I never knew what I was capable of. The palace is far away from me, long since out of view. A forest and a mountainside lie between us. I am sure my icy footprints have melted in the waters of the bay. There is nothing left of me there.

Racing on a bridge made from my heart and hands alone, I am a streak of light, a shooting star between the yawning darkness below me and the deep night sky above.

I sing with triumph, with exhausted, incredulous relief. I am alone and free.

...

"Hah," Anna smiles helplessly, "She's a stinker."

That's about as far as her thinking takes her. Actually, her brain hasn't done much but replay the last minute of their interaction before the kingdom of Arendelle was abruptly re-introduced to their Queen, Miss Majesty Ice Queen of Secretdelle whose iciness is apparently more than just–

"Whoops, bitterness," Anna glances behind her quickly but her companion is busy muttering to his antlered buddy, something about sleds no doubt. Poor Kristoff is still suffering from the loss of his sled last night.

"Well!" Anna chirps, drawing the attention of Kristoff and the unusually precocious pack animal, Sven. "I guess it can't be too long now. I'm sure once I say I'm sorry she'll come back and defrost the kingdom. Yeah." Relying as usual on aggressive cheerfulness, Anna keeps talking to hide her misgivings. "And she'll definitely get you and Sven a new sled."

"All of this happened because of some guy you wanted to marry?" Kristoff asks curiously. Such royal drama, he thinks to himself. Even so, it is difficult for him to see how someone as genuinely nice if bossy as Anna could so completely set off the wrath of a sorceress.

There's a pause that's long enough to make Sven sneeze uncomfortably.

"I'm not sure," Anna says finally. She can't believe it, but she forgot about Hans. Now, far away from the palace with the world open around her, the promise of happiness that he represented at the time seems so less vital. The guilt is confusing. She's not sure now if she should be apologizing to Hans or to Elsa, or somehow to both. But then, her argument with Elsa had been about a lot more than the man she's in love with, or thought she was in love with. Anna tries not to wince and blithely continues to ignore the sinking feelings inside her.

I'm not bitter, Anna tells herself. I'm just mad. Aloud, she says, "I am her sister, after all. She should have just told me the truth."

Kristoff wisely says nothing. Only Sven has the privilege of snorting in agreement.

...  
_  
Man alone builds his isolation, but solitude cultivates a strange mood_. Years of reading in the dark of my room have equipped me with a rich and deceptive language about loneliness. How often did I lose myself in another world so as to shut my ears to the plaintive voice on the other side of my door? I thought that the snow and ice had given me the clarity to finally be myself, alone on a mountaintop, as bright and untouchable as a star. But this palace must have rooms and by the next day it becomes unbearable walking past such vacant, stark spaces, no matter how beautifully clear and simple they seem.

Reveling in my self-assurance, I boldly push open the heavy ice doors that lead into the main hall of the first floor. No frantic stumbling through a door, I think smugly. "This will be the gallery," I announce to the crisp air. I twirl my fingers extravagantly in the air, sending forth a spray of snowflakes glittering like stars throughout the wide expanse of the hall. In another palace, this would be a ballroom, but I will have no dances here, no watchful judging eyes.

With a sweep of my arms, I fling open my heart and let the ice and snow fly from me. Spinning with the force of my power, still exhilarating even after raising a fortress of ice, I bow playfully to the room and slowly rise to see what I have created now.

Oh, Anna.

The first crack in my fortress has appeared and it starts in my heart.

She stands before me, her eyes still and always bright and hopeful. It's just a statue of ice, of course, and now abruptly I feel the difference in my palace of ice and the palace I left behind, the difference between lies and truth.

Disoriented, I look around me. The silence of my wonderland is vast and oppressive. I feel empty, the way I think the cold must feel to others. I glance back at my creation, who stands at the center of a sterile hall in a charade of a palace in the middle of nowhere, with only a coward for company.

"You shouldn't stand alone," I whisper. I am suddenly embarrassed by the sound of my voice. My hands lift slowly and the ice gently bleeds from my fingertips. I will make statues of mother and father. Then I will leave this room and shut the door. This is not a gallery. It is a memorial of a family I have lost forever.


	2. Chapter 2

Olaf's chattering is comforting, if only because Anna can busy herself keeping Kristoff from telling Olaf the truth about what happens to ice in summer. Of course, she realizes that Olaf will have to find out eventually, given the risk to his own life, but why take away such hope?

Anna frets about this for a good while before the obvious hits her.

Dammit Elsa, she thinks furiously and nearly tells Olaf herself that he'll melt faster than a wicked witch in water if he ever sees summer.

Anna, to her dismay, is not nearly so glib as she'd like to be in real life. When she steps or rather slides through the entrance of Elsa's incredible ice palace, her ears ring with happiness at the sound of her sister's soft voice, "Anna?" But when Anna raises her eyes to meet her sister's at the top of the staircase, she's struck dumb.

Elsa, hesitant as she emerges from the shadows of the door, nevertheless cuts an elegant and breathtaking figure, draped in a gown that seems as light and delicate as powdered snow. She shines as brightly and clearly as a star. Whatever outrage or hurt or comfort Anna could have mustered disappears in an instant. Words unbidden drift through her mind, an author she knows that Elsa likes. Anna never had the patience to study diligently for her tutors but she read from the family library every book that her sister touched.

_Born yesterday of the cold mountains, of icy cliffs, of the brine of the sea, she walks here already half divine_.

Sweet heavens above, Anna thinks, gazing stupidly up at her sister. Elsa, you're gorgeous. She blurts out, however, "Whoa.. Elsa, you look… different!"

Oh sweet heavens above, Anna laments.

"It's a good different!" she tries to clarify, relying again on chatty cheerfulness, "And this place… it's amazing!"

"Thank you," her sister replies softly.

Anna thinks Elsa says more but, besides their disastrous time at the coronation ball, this is about as many words as they usually exchange in a week, and Anna rushes by habit to say as much as she can before Elsa politely pushes her away. "I'm so sorry about what happened. If I had known–"

"No, it's okay," Elsa interrupts. Anna is too nervous to notice her sister's trembling voice. "You don't have to apologize–"

No, don't, Anna quails, feeling the familiar disappointment of her sister's turning face.

"–but you should probably go… please," Elsa finishes. Anna can't know that Elsa deliberately averts her gaze, so as to avoid Anna's eyes, the still and always bright and hopeful look she gives.

"But I just got here," Anna says softly.

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I suppose that, since we haven't had much practice, our confrontations would continue to be devastating.

I can barely shut the door before my knees completely give way. My breaths are too short. I can't seem to fill my lungs. I bring my forehead to the floor and just rest there, telling myself that I'm only taking a moment to let the dizziness pass, but I won't be moving anytime soon. I have been here before.

Turning my head, I stare at my hands, which lie limply by my face. I can hear my snow monster chasing them off. There's shouting. I expected that. Anna is impressively stubborn. I mean, she still knocked on my door every morning, for heaven's sake. My lips twist in a pained smile of admiration and grief. Most unseemly. The thought invites others, familiar demons I thought I could simply leave behind me. I am ashamed of my reckless stupidity. The breath remains shallow in my chest as the words filter through the haze of fear in my mind.

I can't control the curse.

I can't. I can't. I can't.

The helplessness is thick inside my throat, constricting my breath. Lying on the floor of my empty new home, I clutch my hands, staring at them, my beautiful gown fading into a gray white shift. Terror, familiar devil, sits like a slow poison in my veins. In a palace of only shut doors, the wind howls hysterically around me, spinning and spinning from the feelings I can't name because there are no words for these terrible things.

Fury seizes me and I slam my clenched hands onto the ground. Pain shoots up to my elbows and, crying openly now, I push myself up and lean against the doors of the palace.

From the other side, I think I hear someone throw a snowball. How much of my life has passed listening to her every move?

Wearily, I look down at my hands. The skin is cracked around a knuckle but I'm not bleeding. The cut only shows a pale dirty gray, no soft warm flesh. If my skin didn't feel so stiff, I think I could peel myself away and expose a statue of ashen marble underneath. I suppose it was only a matter of time before the curse began to show itself in my very body. My heart feels like its clutching itself inside my chest, brittle and so desperately afraid.

I squeeze my arms around my knees and stare straight ahead, looking for that place.

"C-conceal," I choke out, "Don't, don't feel." Conceal, don't feel.

Slowly, the wind ceases and the world becomes quiet, gray and still.

Conceal, don't feel. Again. Conceal, don't feal. Again.

Again.

I don't feel the cold like others do, but these words have always felt numb on my tongue. I repeat the words until they push everything out and there is nothing inside me. Outside, I hear my snow monster roaring. "Make them go, my darling," I whisper. "Only monsters allowed here."


	3. Chapter 3

Kristoff assures himself that he has been in worse situations before. Sven, always aware of his thoughts, anxiously butts him in the shoulder with his nose. Don't bother, the animal seems to say, Just move faster.

The cold is so absolute that the younger, more slender trees have begun to freeze. Kristoff shoves a hard boot against the trunk and Sven pulls in front, straining against a makeshift harness of rope and torn cloth.

With a wrenching groan, the tree falls and Kristoff hurriedly shoves it into place alongside the three others he and Sven have brought down. Anna can't walk anymore and the snow is too deep for Kristoff to carry her, light as she is. They need a sled.

"Go cuddle the princess," Kristoff says, trying to smile as he lifts the harness from Sven who shuffles quickly to the young woman's side. Kristoff begins to tear the harness apart, reusing the material now to bind the sled together.

Anna is curled around herself, sitting on a pile of branches that Kristoff snapped from their trees in an effort to keep her off the snow. In the distance, she can hear Olaf, who never seems to stop talking, search for fallen branches that he can add to the small fire, which constantly threatens to perish in the unforgiving winter.

"Good boy," Anna murmurs to Sven, who has pushed his head into her arms and against her chest. She can just feel the warmth of the animal's breath against her cheek. Her nose wrinkles.

Now Kristoff is the chatty one. "I was just a kid the last time I saw a blizzard like this. The winter seemed about as lonely as I was. I met my adopted family that night. The snow was almost over my head, which sounds really impressive but I probably didn't break four foot at the time…"

Anna listens gratefully. Her eyes flutter close. I'm not sleeping, she says to herself firmly. She knows it would be dangerous to sleep. The ice in her heart will only move faster to consume her. Her thoughts drift back to the one they left behind, the one who left her.

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"Do you want to build a snowman?" little Anna hums absently to herself as she adds another block to her tower. She's brought her knapsack of toys to the door. Mr. Hugs is here, his white teddy bear arms always open. The wooden ponies are in their stable next to him. Right now, Anna is building a palace, like Mama and Papa's, but in her palace she gets to have a party every night.

"Hello!" Anna chirrups, making one doll bow to another. "I'm Princess Anna and Mama says we can dance in the courtyard. Maybe later you can see Mama and Papa dance in the big hall."

The dolls twirl gently in the air. Anna giggles, "No, silly, you can't dance with Princess Elsa. She's going to be the queen someday. But she likes to watch us dance from her tower. Isn't it beautiful? And sometimes she throws down chocolate."

Over her shoulder, Anna calls out to her sister on the other side of the door. "We both like chocolate, right Elsa? I bet when you're Queen we'll have chocolate every day."

Elated, Anna hears her sister's gentle voice respond, "Yes, Anna. Every day." Anna isn't always sure her sister is listening to her, and every time Elsa speaks is a victory.

"We can play pretend now though!" Anna squeaks excitedly. "Do you want to give Mr. Hugs a chocolate?" Anna picks up a block from her tower and holds it up invitingly, staring at a door whose wooden panels she knows better than her sister's face.

Elsa's answer is expected. "I'm reading right now, Anna. Maybe some other time. Could you play in the courtyard?"

"Of course," Anna says eagerly. "I'll pick up my toys, too. So you don't trip. Maybe later you can dance in the courtyard. I could teach you," she says wistfully.

Her sister doesn't answer, but Anna is busy packing up her ponies and doesn't notice. Their conversations often end this way.

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In the frozen palace, a short cry bounces sharply against the walls before it is lost in the deep snow that rises visibly in the bedroom of the queen. In her sleep, Elsa whimpers, her legs twisting in gossamer sheets of snowy linen. Elsa struggled to make them as light as possible. The weight of the blanket felt like rough wool pressing heavily upon her.

It is close to dawn and she has only just fallen asleep, but already her rest is disturbed. By nature and habit, Elsa is a quiet person, except for when she sleeps. In fact, soon after that day the sisters were moved to different rooms further away from each other, so that Anna could not hear her sister's nightmares.

Tonight, Elsa dreams of a child dancing in a courtyard, illuminated by the summer sun. Above, she watches from the window, book forgotten in hand. The water flows harmlessly from the fountain and Anna shrieks with laughter as she kicks the jets of water. Looking up, she waves vigorously to the figure in the window. She doesn't beckon for Elsa to join her. She accepts that they are together, if still so far away.

These are not dark fantasies that Elsa's mind has devised just to torture her with them. These are memories, distorted perhaps, now looming and dark when, at the time, they were only familiar pains to be endured and forcibly forgotten, until the next day when her sister would try again.

In Elsa's dream, the scene fades and the events of the past three days begin to unfold, minute details replaying with growing intensity. Elsa feels the shards of ice like knives shoot from her naked hands. The shocked eyes of the ballroom turn afraid and hateful. Her sister chases her fruitlessly. No one can find Elsa in the woods, for she is lost even to herself.

In the dark confines of the queen's bedroom, an observer might think the lady shivers in the winter air, but these are shudders, the wracks of grief and guilt. Tears trickle and freeze down Elsa's face. They will be gone by morning and Elsa will not remember what she has dreamed.


	4. Chapter 4

I'm falling asleep, Anna realizes, but this time she can't stop herself. She shivers uncontrollably on the couch in the family library. She can hear Hans speaking to someone outside. She tries to call for help, to explain that he's a villain, that her sister is in danger, that she is dying and Arendelle will soon lose them both. But no voice can escape her chattering teeth.

Her head falls weakly to the side and her eyes rest on the books that lie on the table next to her. The words surface, piece by piece. Anna always imagined her sister's voice reading to her and it is Elsa's voice she hears.

_This is a life full of beautiful promise. Little princesses in legends are not different from this. Protected, sheltered, cultivated, what could not this child become?_

Oh Elsa, Anna thinks, her own words distant and disconnected, slow to form in her sluggish mind. Please Elsa, save yourself. Because I can't save you.

The room is dark and cheerless. The lump of ice in Anna's chest has spread throughout her limbs. She can feel herself becoming like marble and she struggles to push herself from the couch. If she must die alone, she will die standing, a statue in the middle of the room.

Even as she moves, Anna's thoughts begin to drift. She thinks of warm summer days, of her sister's smile. Elsa may be a queen of ice and snow, but her sweet, sad smile has always reminded Anna of the summer, of a quiet day spent on a green lawn with the world gentle and still, basking in the warmth of a loving star.

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Captured, escaped, recaptured. This is the end now, he knows it. Hans follows the queen onto the frozen bay. To her plea that he look after her sister, Hans can't resist the stab of cruel pleasure in his heart as he shouts the words, "Your sister is dead… because of you!"

In that instant, when those words punch through the howling wind to reach her, Hans has a moment to appreciate Elsa's striking, starlight beauty. In the queen's piercing blue eyes, so virtuous and pure in their capacity to love, Hans watches the fragments of Elsa's heart shattering into ever smaller pieces. The queen's devastation is immediate and absolute. He has won. With vicious satisfaction, he watches her fall to the ground.

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In the sudden stillness, the world seems both mute and deaf. Crystals of ice and snow hang in the air. They promise never to move again.

Released from the fog, Anna sees Kristoff running toward her. With a flare of hope, her heart beats hard and gives her the strength to turn to look behind her, where she can hear the rasp of steel as it is drawn from a sheath. Though Elsa has spent her life trying to subdue fear, the power of it warms Anna's blood enough to propel her forward, away from Kristoff and toward the figure lying stricken on the ground.

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A shout. And then, with disbelief, Hans watches his sword shatter at the touch of her hand. Blown to the ground, he struggles hard before he can suck in a gasp, completely stunned. Who knew a maiden could have such powers?

Staring up, he does not realize how privileged he is to see the princess's last breath escape her frozen lips in a puff of white mist.

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In my grief, I can hear nothing but the storm inside me. Broken, with head bowed, I wait to see if the blade of a sword can pierce my body, cutting through cursed marbled flesh.

When nothing happens, I look up.

The scream stops in my throat, a silent shriek that tears through my soul.

Anna stands above me at the center of the frozen bay, a statue. I drag myself up and grasp my sister's face with trembling hands, whispering her name desperately.

Her eyes are open. Here they are, still and always bright.

But where is the hope, her defiant, powerful hope?

I can only beg in single words but my heart, in all its pieces, cries out to her. I am here. I am here with you. You don't have to stand alone. Please don't leave me now.

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Kristoff, his companions, and those on the palace balcony watch the queen clutch the shoulders of the frozen princess. Even from the palace, they can hear her weeping.

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For only a brief moment, Anna experiences the cold and quiet her sister has been locked away in. It is so deeply lonely, a desert of ice and snow. As the chill slips from her body and disappears into the air, Anna's first conscious thought is a promise. Never again. Elsa will never be alone again.

"You sacrificed yourself for me," Elsa says after their embrace, the first in years.

Anna looks into her sister's eyes, which shine as brightly and clearly as starlight.

"Of course," Anna answers softly, "I love you."


End file.
